


beyond the sun

by Kells



Series: gifts, requests, and other little bits [6]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Arranged Marriage, F/M, Female Steve Rogers, Mutual Pining, vague historical setting involving princely states
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-18
Updated: 2016-05-13
Packaged: 2018-04-15 07:57:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4598907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kells/pseuds/Kells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She knew her duty, and he would respect that; neither of them could help it if he disagreed entirely with the logic of her choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stephanie has made grave mistakes before, but never by her own deliberate choice.

Stephanie clasped her hands together to stop their shaking. It was only James knocking, after all- her own dear James, who had been her closest confidant long before her father had appointed him captain of her personal guard.

“Enter,” Stephanie said softly, knowing he would hear. A moment later he had stepped through, leaving the door ajar as he swept a bow so perfectly correct that Stephanie felt her throat close up at the reminder of the chasm that had grown between them since her engagement.

“James,” she murmured, but faltered when he flinched at the sound of his own name on her lips. After a moment, the captain seemed to realize that Stephanie had abandoned her attempt at conversation and would not speak again. He raised his head and met her gaze for the first time since he’d come in. Of course his eyes were the same startling grey they had ever been, but it seemed to Stephanie that the inner light that had always given them their particular shine had faded since the last time they had been alone together. It made him seem much older, she thought, or at least more severe; for the first time she could think of he  _looked_  like the commander she had always known he would one day be.

“I trust you have everything you need for the night.”

Except your forgiveness, she longed to answer. Except the knowledge of his unconditional support that had always been her greatest source of strength. Stephanie nodded mutely, plunging them back into that strange silence, thick with everything that went unsaid between them. James glanced away, restless, and Stephanie rushed to speak before he could find some excuse to leave without another word.

“You're quite sure you will not stay?”  

One of his hands clenched in anger, impatience or a combination of the two, but James only nodded with the same maddening serenity with which he always spoke to Stephanie now.

“We'll chase the dawn, I think, and spare the horses as much sun as we can.”

She felt the burn of frightened, already-longing tears. 

“Must it be so soon?”

He shrugged like it was of very little consequence to him when he took his leave of her.

“The roads will be impassable by mid-day.”

They would be thronging, he meant, with guests eager to witness the celebration he was determined not to attend. If she had been as brave as he had once believed she could be, Stephanie would have been on her knees by then imploring him to stay, or take her with him, or stand by her while she explained first to her father and then her fiancé why there could be no marriage to seal the truce between their families. Instead, they stood there in the same pained silence that had choked the room before. After another pregnant pause, James took a step back so he could bow, scrupulously low, again.

“If there is nothing else, my lady-“

He had called her by her name since he was hardly knee-high to his present height, and neither subtle gossip nor outright instruction had ever persuaded him to give up the privilege Stephanie herself would never have dreamt of denying him. Before she knew what she was doing, she had closed the distance between them to grasp one of his hands with both of hers.

“James,  _please_ -”

“No. Not in this lifetime or the next.”

Stephanie reared back, as shocked as if he’d tried to hit her; she thought it might be the first time James had ever refused her outright. The fire she had thought extinguished must merely have been banked- the captain’s eyes fairly blazed with emotion. Finally, _finally,_ he let her see beyond the mask of polite calm that had been his only expression since she had agreed to marry Howard's son.

“My life is yours,” he told her plainly, as though it were a very simple fact she should never have needed him to confirm in words.

“I would take my lads to war today if you commanded it; if it would please you I would have one of them run me through here and now.”

The anguish he had given up trying to hide arrested Stephanie's voice before she could protest that she would die herself before she gave such an order. James offered his best attempt at a smile.

“I wish you every happiness- of course I do- but I cannot watch you throw your life away.”

With an effort of more than will, Stephanie bit back the arguments he had already heard a hundred times. She knew her duty, and he would respect that; neither of them could help it if he disagreed entirely with the logic of her choice.

“Will you read my letters?”

She could not bring herself to ask him to promise that he would reply. James hesitated, but nodded eventually, then drew himself up and clicked his heels with formal grace.

“Good night, Stephanie.”

It was a concession she had not dared to ask for. She caught his hand again as he turned, and knew well what it cost him to stay there instead of wrenching free. 

“Be safe.”  

 Perhaps even that was more than she had any right to ask of him now.  

“Go with the blessing, James.”

He squeezed her hand, as he had done a thousand times while they were growing up, and then let go.

“If he hurts you I'll kill him myself. You may tell him that, if you choose; I'll never deny it.”

That was not the answer Stephanie had looked for, nor any kind of fitting farewell, but in its way it was a vow as binding as the ones she could not ask him to stay and witness.

"Go," she said again, because of course it was his right. This time her captain forewent mocking her with studied politesse, but strode from the room like a man too long in darkness finally seeking the light.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natalia wishes, fervently, that she had enforced the captain's original plan.

Natalia had known from the first that it was a mistake to let her trainer linger. The captain's original plan had been far better- they should certainly have left with the night, as he had told Stephanie they would, and never looked back until they were so far north that not even Stark’s men would know how to follow them. And yet James had left their assigned quarters fully determined that they would be beyond crier’s range of the wedding by mid-day, but returned so pale and downcast that Natalia knew without asking that Stephanie had let her captain see how much she wished she could force him to stay within reach. _Thank God_ she had never asked him to join her at her new husband's court- Natalia had known James Barnes long enough to know both that he would have given in eventually and that keeping such a promise would have destroyed him as surely as the most virulent plague, and quite possibly as swiftly. Instead, she had let them go, but reluctantly enough that James did not seem to think they _could_ go quite yet. Rather than flying for the hills, then, they had passed the previous night safely stowed in a tavern on the outskirts of the city, far enough removed from the festivities that no one could compel them to attend but close enough for the casual conversation of every passing aristocrat to supply the endless self-flagellation James seemed to crave. Natalia cringed as the still-drunken pair of noblemen across the table half-fell into the space they’d been allotted, one of them still mumbling an anecdote that was no more coherent for being enthusiastically shared. His friend shook his head, looking both scandalized and sympathetic.

“And on their wedding night, no less. Who would have imagined it?”

Natalia cast an anxious look at her trainer’s white-knuckled grip on his tankard.

“Should we be on our way?” 

He did not speak, but caught her eye and shook his head slightly to show he did not mean to intervene. Natalia nodded, and might have breathed out slowly in relief had not the next question robbed her entirely of breath.

“They cannot think _she_ did it, though- that little flower of a girl, a killer?”

Natalia lifted her head so quickly they might have heard her neck creak in protest; next to her, the captain was already on his feet. The man who had first spoken carried on oblivious, sloppy in speech but eager to be believed.

“I had it from the guards themselves- they say she has confessed it.”  

 “What is it that she’s meant to have done?”

Both men looked round, wide-eyed in their surprise at the unexpected interruption, and in so unmistakably foreign an accent. The news-bearer’s eyes shifted from James to Natalia and then back again before settling on the insignia at the captain’s breast. Natalia rose slowly, unwilling either to provoke a fight if her instincts were wrong or to leave her captain without ready support if they were not.

“You are-”

Again, James shook his head- impatiently, Natalia thought, as though he could not understand how anyone could be quite so slow in their wits.

“I was, before all this. I ask again: what exactly is your accusation?”

He spoke so authoritatively that it never occurred to them to ask what right he had to demand such an explanation. His dueling hand lingered at his waist, not quite a threat. Natalia longed to reach for her sword, but knew too well that as things stood she could only make the situation more fraught.

“It’s hardly _our_ accusation,” one of the young men protested.

“Half the court saw the young Lord take his wife to bed, and yet-”

He faltered, losing confidence as the captain’s lips thinned and his expression hardened. The other man, who claimed to have heard the details from Stark’s own guards, took over the tale with a confidence that bordered on defiance.

“Anyone would tell you they were together in the evening. In the morning his doctor found the young Lord, quite alone, with her knife in his gut. They caught up with her in the chapel, already telling her sins to the priest.”

The very idea that Stephanie would resort to such a thing- _Stephanie,_ who was so devoted to her father’s vision of peace that she had spent the last three months and more watching her dearest friend’s heart break before her eyes without offering the consolation the entire court had known she longed to give- Natalia shook her head in wordless protest. On top of which one detail stood out as particularly bizarre- she had never, in all her life, known Stephanie to take up arms of her own accord.

“What can you mean, _her_ knife?”

“A dagger, perhaps six inches long. As finely worked as silver, but solid enough against iron or steel.”

Natalia’s voice caught in her throat as she realized, too late, what her trainer meant to do. The idiot who had brought the whole calamity crashing down around them nodded emphatically, entirely unaware that he was helping an innocent man to sign his own death warrant with chilling deliberation.

“That's the very one. Do you know it, then- have you seen it in her possession?”

“James-”

He stopped her with a hand on her wrist- an affectionate remonstration he had used many times, but in this instance quite possibly also a tender goodbye.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, very sincerely, before turning to face the gathering crowd- of course the two who had caught their attention were no longer the only ones listening.

“Certainly I’ve seen it,” the captain answered without inflection. He stood quite still, possessed with the understated grace of a soldier by both choice and training.

“The blade is mine, as was the deed. If my Lady has said otherwise it can only be that in her grief she blames herself for failing to anticipate the extent of my envy.”   


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, the demands of duty grow too absurd for even Stephanie to bear.

Stephanie was beyond the point of tears or screaming. She had been protesting almost without pausing for breath from the very moment they had come to release her from the room in which she had been held. It had been some time since she had run out of variations on the single theme that she could not understand how her father could allow the erstwhile captain of his guard to have his way. Which, apparently, was to give up both life and reputation to allow the elder Stark to avenge the attack on his son without repercussions no one could afford.

“How can you ask this of him?”

“The peace will be preserved,” Sir Joseph reminded his daughter. “Stark will allow us all to move beyond this outrage.”

They could hardly send her father’s only heir to her death, even for killing her husband on his own wedding day- Sir Joseph would be honour-bound to avenge his daughter, no matter what she had done, which could only renew the cycle of death and resentment they had been seeking to lay to rest in the first instance. With this new confession, however- and God only knew how he had known or guessed enough of it to tell them a story they could claim to believe- James was a soldier, noble only through his mother’s birth. Stephanie's father would condemn him publicly- a ritual withdrawal of the protection of their court- and the matter could be laid to rest with the same finality as the man who would die to let them do it.

Stephanie had been so certain that she had already made every sacrifice that could be demanded.

“How can you ask this of _me_? You want me to stand by and watch him-“

The words he had thrown at her stuck in her throat; Stephanie gave a sob she had not thought she had the energy to produce and made a second attempt. “Am I to stand by and watch him throw his life away for my sake?”

Her father nodded once.

“You know it is gladly done.”

Stephanie gave a hollow laugh quite foreign to her own ears.

“He has long forgotten what it is to be _glad_ of anything.”

She raised her eyes and stared her father down. “I cannot believe you are at peace with this.”

Her father, who had raised her in the certainty that truth and justice must go hand in hand, looked away.

“I understand, I think, more than you can.”

For a moment she was half-blind with anger- if he thought _now_ was the time for more talk of duty and obligation- but then the grave sorrow in her father’s voice registered, and with it the look of exhausted resignation in his too-sympathetic eyes. “Certainly I would have said much the same had anyone ever claimed that Sarah stood accused.”

Stephanie breathed in sharply. Her father very rarely mentioned her mother; he had never yet given the slightest indication that he knew or cared how deep the captain’s regard for his daughter really ran. After a moment, Stephanie reached out to touch her father’s arm.

“I need to see him,” she murmured. “Father- let me tell him I have always known.”

He looked so very severe that she was sure he would refuse, but after a moment Sir Joseph sighed deeply before rising slowly- painfully, like a man borne down by the weight of his regrets.

“Ten minutes, if they will allow it.”

It seemed they would, at that- quite likely Sir Joseph had persuaded them that James would give Stephanie details no one else would dare to demand. With her father’s blessing she was led down to the dark, frigid holding cells which even when they’d thought she had killed her own husband had struck the court as too vile for a lady of breeding to endure.

“James,” she breathed, fighting not to acknowledge the thrumming of her heart much closer to her throat than it had been before. He was on his feet before he had fully turned towards her.

“You cannot be here.” 

It wasn’t what Stephanie had imagined he would say first. Next to her, the guard who had been assigned to accompany her shifted anxiously. Both the captive and his visitor ignored the movement completely.

“My Lady-“

“Be quiet.”

He froze; so did the guard. She was not only frightened for his sake, Stephanie realized abruptly; she was also deeply angry. “How can you think I’d ever let you do this?”

His eyes begged her to understand. She would not, Stephanie had already realized; perhaps she _could_ not. She lunged to her left, striking quickly and with a violence her father would never have imagined she knew how to channel. It was not as swift or silent as if it had been Natalia or James himself in action, but the guard dropped with a heavy thump and did not try to rise.

“Come,” Stephanie muttered, turning briskly as much because they had no time to spare as because she could not be certain she wanted, at all, to see the captain’s reaction. Not quite briskly enough, however- James caught her arm, as gentle as he had ever been with her but too firm for her to avoid meeting his startled eyes.

“What can you think you’re doing?”

“Saving you from a traitor’s death. What did you imagine I was doing? Quickly, James- they will not hesitate to follow.”

He took two determined steps away.

“You mustn’t-“

Stephanie shook her head impatiently, bending to retrieve a key at the unfortunate guard’s belt.

“This from the fool prepared to die for a crime not one soul believes to be his doing.”

She threw open the window, but he had yet to move.

“James,” she growled; of course he shook his head, resolute.

“I’ll not make a fugitive of you.”

“No,” Stephanie agreed. She smiled more freely than she had in weeks. “I think you’ll find I’m doing that myself. Will you not come with me, Captain?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James has his doubts; Stephanie tries to allay them.

“No!”

He should never have let her talk him out of that cell. In fact, James decided, he should have taken Natalia’s advice from several years before and left both home and country before they could come anywhere near this point. His own Stephanie, beacon of righteousness in the eyes of all who knew her, was very calmly suggesting that they steal a fresh pair of rested horses rather than push the ones they had _already_ stolen beyond endurance.

“This is madness,” he decided. “Stephanie, we must return.”

She took a step closer, faintly menacing in her agitation.

“So that they can decide they’d rather see you drawn and quartered or burnt at the stake? Of course we’re not going back there.”

Here, at last, was a glimmer of the fighting spirit James had begun to fear Stephanie had lost forever. He sighed, imagining what she would say if he dared tell her that he’d far sooner go to such a fate alone than risk the same for her.

“Listen to me. Your father will-”

“My father can go to the devil,” Stephanie spat- then paused, taken aback by her own bitterness. “I don’t mean that.”

“Of course not,” he agreed readily- no one who had ever seen them together could doubt the real affection between Sir Joseph and his only living family. Without moving otherwise, Stephanie took hold of James’s hand and laced their fingers together like she had done when they were children. As she spoke, she kept her eyes trained on their joined hands.

“He really believes I tried to kill my husband in cold blood.”

That word, on her lips, struck like a mortal blow. James forced himself to speak lightly, his voice remaining even and assured.

“If that’s true, he is as much a fool as the rest of them.”  

She hardly moved her head or neck, but he had long since learnt to tell when Stephanie was watching him. James smiled faintly, answering before she felt she had to ask in words.

“The people we heard it from said you had confessed. It struck me as precisely the kind of thing you’d do if you were convinced I had done it.”

He had all but sworn he would, after all, the very moment the grinning idiot gave him an excuse. Stephanie shook her head, however, her grip on his hand tightening to emphasise her earnestness.

“They had your knife. I knew they meant to accuse you.”

And so she had confessed, knowing her new father-in-law was unlikely to do more than try to frighten her. By the time anyone made a case for the captain’s guilt, she had hoped, James would be too far beyond their reach for anyone to think of following.

“I never imagined you’d come back. I would never, _never_ , have believed that he could throw you to the wolves like that.”

She was trembling now. James reached towards her, thinking to hold out his cloak, and found himself frozen in surprise when Stephanie flung both arms about his neck and clung to him as though she were drowning and his shoulders offered the only chance she had at keeping her head above the water. His heart jolted and jarred in his chest, its staccato hammering becoming so violent that James had to wonder how it was not shaking the pair of them head to foot. Cautiously, he allowed his suddenly leaden hands to rest at her waist.

“He will have realised that- thrown or not- I would have gone and gladly if it would keep you safe.”

“He said as much,” Stephanie admitted, the words a quiet sigh just inches from his ear. “I told him I thought you had forgotten the meaning of the word.”          

She was still shaking- James realised with dismay that she was crying quietly.

“Stephanie-“

“You were so angry when you left.”

Not with her, he thought to argue- but it would have been a lie: James had been fairly simmering with resentment towards the end. Of course he had blamed her father first and most, closely followed by the gilded baboon whose one redeeming quality was that he seemed hopelessly unlikely ever to stop prattling about himself long enough to do his bride any real harm. If he were honest with himself, however, James had to own that he had also come to hold Stephanie’s quiet acquiescence against her. He’d told himself  it was because he wanted more for her- and certainly he had- but he had not stopped to ask himself what he wanted _from_ her, or how he could imagine that he had any right to make those demands of her.

“I’m sorry. I should have never-”

“It was hurting you to speak to me,” Stephanie interrupted in an exhausted whisper. Her eyes, still streaming, sought his with something more than pity but less than grief- awareness, perhaps, or understanding. “You could hardly stand to _look_ at me, but when they said I’d _killed a man_ your first thought was to-“

Her hands, which had slipped to his shoulders, returned suddenly to his neck- cradling and caressing, as if she thought the axe might still fall, and meant to stop it even as she tried to hide her tears in the rough fabric of his shirt.  “God in Heaven, can you really think my good name is worth your life?”

“A thousand times over,” he told her; that, at least, was the truth. They were so close together that a stray tendril of Stephanie’s wind-blown hair swept over his face, making him blink. Too bold by half, he caught the silken strands and tucked them behind her ear. One of her hands crept up his jaw to linger at his cheek.

“James.”  

It sounded like a question, so he nodded, but could not be sure of what he had agreed to until Stephanie drew herself up and pressed her lips to his with fierce determination.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> they do say blood will out.

“You approve of the broth, then.”

James was struggling not to laugh at the relish with which Stephanie drank directly from her bowl, eschewing crockery like a soldier on the road. She grinned at him without apology, setting it down between them with the most content of sighs.

“I don’t think you can imagine how long I’ve envied Natasha this.”

The captain raised an eloquent brow.

“I would have brought you some much sooner if I had known broth meant so much to you.”

“Not _that_!”

He reared back as Stephanie moved to tap his wrist in laughing reproach, very nearly covering himself in the hot liquid he had been teasing her about. The lady scowled.

“James! I swear you’re like a child sometimes. Put that down before you hurt yourself.”

She had not seen James smile so widely in months; he lowered the pockmarked wooden vessel with the reverence Stephanie might have accorded a sacred chalice.

“As my lady commands.”

In Stark’s rooms, he had turned that title into a bitter accusation. As they sat close together, safe by the side of the secluded stream where James had promised to meet Natalia if he found a way out of his own impending execution, Stephanie knew the words were as much a caress as the brush of the captain’s boot against her own, repeated just a touch too often to be called careless.

“I meant _this_ ,” she explained, capturing one of his hands so she could wrap her own around it. At court, so deliberate a display of intimacy would have been enough to see Stephanie confined to a nunnery, or James dismissed from her father’s service without any chance of pardon. “Going where you go, not having to wonder what they think of me or how my conduct reflects on anyone but you. I would have given _anything_ to have that freedom sooner.”

Her fingers tightened on his.

“I thought I would die, watching you leave like that.”

“I’m sorry.”

James’s voice was heavy with remorse. “It was a coward’s choice.”

“I am quite certain it was not,” Stephanie protested sternly; James might have answered if they had not both heard the strange metallic click that sounded from behind him. The captain was on his feet in a second, positioning himself carefully in front of Stephanie even as he helped her up. He had his sword in hand by the time their assailant stepped out of the shadows.

“Come out,” he suggested, calm and challenging. “Face me, if you have any honour to speak of.”

The man came forward on heavy, deliberate feet.

“Put that down, young man.”

Obadiah Stane had been presented to Sir Joseph’s court as a cousin of the Starks. He was also Howard’s closest friend, and godfather to his son- which unfortunately meant that he had long since enjoyed use of the projectile weapons Tony and his father were so proud of having designed.

“I must apologise, Captain- I hope you’ll see that this is for the best.”

They got no further warning- the gun went off with an almighty crack. James gasped, but kept his grip on his sword. His free hand, which had flown to his side, was already stained with blood.

“It’s nothing,” he muttered before Stephanie had to ask. “A flesh wound.”

It hardly looked like ‘nothing,’ but Stane was nodding with terrible joviality.

“Calm yourself, my Lady. I have nothing to gain from his death.”  

In response, Stephanie tugged the sword from the captain’s flagging grip.

“I won’t let you take him.”

Stark’s advisor waved Tony’s pistol dismissively.

“There’s no need for that- we’re all friends here.”

He turned his head to address someone still lingering in the shadows. “Tell them, my dear.”

Stephanie felt James tense beside her as Natalia stumbled, white-faced, into the clearing. Her eyes and voice were dark with anger.

“You promised me they would be safe.”

“And so they will be, and you with them. A flesh wound, as he said.”

He caught Stephanie’s eye, offering what he seemed to consider a reassuring smile. “I have no intention of ‘taking him’ anywhere. All I require is the dread assassin’s shirt, and your solemn word that none of you will return this way while we all still live.”

“What in God’s name can you want with-”

Stephanie fell silent as the pieces came together.

“You mean to kill him,” she realised. “You’ll go back to them and tell Stark that you dispatched my father’s hired killer, and then you’ll see to it that Tony never lives long enough to say a word against you.”

Stark’s bosom friend gave an indifferent shrug.

“It may not come to that. Perhaps the boy will exceed himself in the usual way, and do me the favour of expiring from his wounds before I have to lift a finger.”

“Perhaps,” an unmistakable voice agreed, too loud in the stillness of the moonlit woods. “But then again he might well disappoint you, Uncle, and come this way to speak against you on his own behalf. Men-”

Natalia lunged before Stane had quite raised his gun. James started towards them with a cry, but it was over in a moment- the weapon hit the ground, and Stark’s men had the traitor surrounded before he could go after it. Tony came forward to retrieve the pistol he had built, admiration plain on his face.

“Thank you, Miss Romanov. Evidently our boys have much to learn.”

She gave a bow of acknowledgment, simple and soldierly, but turned to James with a kind of terror in her eyes.

“You need a doctor,” she protested; her voice was choked with tears. “James, I swear, I would never have-”

“Hush,” the captain murmured. “I’ll be all right, Natalia.”

They fell together in a fervent, grateful embrace. Stephanie glanced away to afford them what privacy she could, and found Stark following her movements with lively curiosity.

“Stephanie,” he cried, grinning already. “My dear, will you not greet your husband?”


	6. Chapter 6

“Explain,” Stephanie hissed. The heavy blade in her hands pressed, hard and unforgiving as her eyes, against her supposed husband’s throat. “Now.”

Tony found himself cheered in spite of the grim sight of his father’s closest friend under the armed guard of men who had only recently looked upon him with the greatest respect.

“I knew there was another side to you,” he told his wife with enthusiasm. “Directly we were introduced I told my father there was a firebrand concealed somewhere under all those manners.”

“Charming.”

The captain’s voice held the same cold note of warning that it always did when the soldier found he could no longer avoid addressing Stark directly; his expression was no warmer. “I would answer the lady, sir.”

“No doubt,” Tony muttered; as far as he could tell there was no end to the things James Barnes would do for Sir Joseph’s daughter. The pressure on his windpipe doubled abruptly.

“Show some respect,” the lady herself snarled. Her whole aspect was wonderfully transformed by the passion she had not shown in all the time they had known each other. “How dare you speak to him in such a way? Deceitful wretch- he would have  _died_  to keep their god-forsaken peace.”

There were tears in her eyes, the young lord realised with a twinge of regret; not for the first time, he wondered what it must be like to feel so deeply for someone else.

“Come, now,” Tony blustered, resentful of his own remorse. “You cannot think I would have allowed it to go so far.”

Stephanie chose not to lower her weapon.

“You let them arrest him.”

“He let them arrest _you_ ,” the captain interjected; he did not make so bold as to grasp her arm with her husband only feet away, but clenched his gloved hand tight as if to remind himself that he must resist that temptation. “He promised before God and your father that he would keep you safe, and _this_ is how he-”

One of the guards gave a startled shout- Stane, it seemed, had grown impatient with their prattling. He threw himself sideways, as if he intended to commandeer whatever weapon he could and break their line that way, but when the soldiers massed to prevent it Stane lunged through the gap they had created across from their comrade. He was a graceful man and a dangerous fighter, strangely agile considering his age and size, but he had not accounted for Stephanie’s personal guard. Natalia got there first, but James Barnes set upon Stane with such a fury that Tony had to wonder how much of that anger the captain would have preferred to direct at him. When the skirmish was over it was Natalia who stood over the prisoner, her own blade against his neck with far more enthusiasm than Stephanie had shown thus far.

“Yield,” she ordered, giving the clear impression that she rather hoped he would resist. Tony’s godfather sought out the captain’s steely gaze.

“I could have helped you,” he protested, as frustrated as an instructor whose pupils were refusing to perform. “What can you stand to gain from returning the girl to her husband?”

“He is about to enlighten us,” Barnes answered. His voice seemed to waver- in response to Stane’s taunting, Tony thought until Stephanie set down the captain’s sword as her elegant brows drew together.

“James.”

Of course he turned towards her without a second thought. Stephanie barely spared her husband or his guards a glance before taking the soldier’s hand in hers to draw him gently to one side. Their exchange passed almost entirely without words- Tony watched intently as the lady breached her soldier’s defences one by one until Barnes let his cautioning hands drop so Stephanie could see the extent of his injuries for herself. She gave a muffled exclamation, somehow both dismayed and thoroughly disdainful, and pressed both hands to his bare and bloodied torso with startling, unhesitating sureness of touch.

“Well,” Stane rumbled suggestively, darkly amused at Tony’s expense. Natalia’s knife bit into his neck.

“I will make you long for a traitor’s death,” she promised, holding Tony’s godfather’s gaze until Stane chose to trust in Howard’s mercy over Romanova’s self-restraint. Natalia turned to address Tony as he had heard his father’s senior advisors speak to their squires.

“He must have a doctor,” she said again; this time it was quite clearly a command. “Not your friend Banner, I think.”

“The best we can locate close by,” Tony agreed, wondering that he could have spent so long in Natalia Romanova’s proximity without discovering quite how intimidating she could be. The captain’s protégée kicked at Stane with the toe of one boot. “I will ensure that our cargo makes it safely into your father’s custody.”

Stane’s eyes promised the most deadly consequences, but Tony found he could no longer feel threatened by the man he had once trusted above all save perhaps his father.

“Do what you must,” he told Natalia by way of farewell, relishing the way Stane shifted uneasily in her grasp. When the prison train had been assembled, Tony turned to his own bodyguard, who would hardly have heard of leaving the young lord however strenuously he had argued for it. He found Captain Rhodes staring straight ahead, pale with discomfort, and followed his gaze just in time to see Stephanie press impulsive lips to her captain’s cheek. Barnes’s worried eyes met Tony’s for the barest second as he pulled away; the lady took her protector’s face in gentle hands and kissed him with a tenderness Tony had never so much as thought of showing anyone.

“It cannot be adultery,” he offered, not least because he had no doubt Stephanie would cut anyone down who dared levy any further charge against her beleaguered beloved. “We will have very little trouble having the wretched thing annulled, I suspect, given the lady was loathe to attend the ceremony and I hardly meant a word of those vows.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the patriarchs re-enter the picture

“He cannot hope to avoid the axe,” Tony was saying when his father came in. His voice was hushed, regretful, and Howard found himself gritting his teeth all over again at the thought of a life-long friendship squandered for the sake of misplaced ambition.

“No,” he agreed by way of announcing his own presence. “He cannot.”

His son and James Rhodes stood at once; Stephanie turned to help her injured companion rise. Of course both had been pardoned as soon as Howard had heard the full account; it had been his own doctor who had declared the captain as fit as might be hoped under the circumstances. In fact, it rather seemed that life on the run had suited James Barnes: the silent, barely civil military commander had been eclipsed by a bright-spirited boy with an easy laugh that lit the lady’s eyes as well as his own. Stephanie, too, seemed another girl entirely with a real smile in place instead of one summoned for her father’s sake. Tony, unfortunately, was very much as he had always been.

“Father,” he cried. “Have you come to congratulate us on-“

Howard had not realised the extent of his own anger until he understood that the crack which had silenced his son had been caused by the movement of his own gloved hand against the boy’s cheek.

“Reckless, arrogant, _selfish_ fool,” he snarled. Your mother has been _in mourning_ , he might have said if they had not been in the presence of people his son had wronged in a more immediate way. “Do you know what you’ve put these people through? They have every right to demand your death along with your uncle’s.”  

For once, it seemed, Tony had no retort.

“In fairness,” Captain Barnes murmured unexpectedly. “He did also discover the plot on both your lives.”

Howard found he had little choice but to stop glaring at his son to scrutinise the soldier whose hand Stephanie had yet to release.

“Do you _defend_ him?”

None but the blind could have missed the devotion in the lady’s admiring smile.  

“He’ll tell you he understands the impulse.”

“I cannot see how,” Howard confessed when Barnes failed to disagree.

“He found Stane out,” the captain explained. “And through this trick secured a confession and brought the man to justice without risking your person or that of his lady mother.”

That his son might have acted out of love, much less for himself or Maria, Howard had not thought to consider- and yet Tony’s downcast eyes combined with Rhodes’ wry expression to tell the whole story. Stephanie shook her head as though regretfully.

“What a pair of heroic fools.”

Howard’s marriage was a comfortable one, but even after a lifetime of familiarity he was sure he had never looked at his wife with such pure affection as passed between the girl and her captain.

“Is there a reason you were not betrothed as children?”

He had wondered earlier, but before his son had shown his hand it would hardly have been strategic to inquire. Stephanie looked away; the captain’s smile did not waver, but there was a rigidity in it that had not been there before.

“What can a soldier hope to offer such a girl?”

“Everything,” the lady murmured; Howard was not certain she knew she had spoken aloud until she turned to press a hand to her soldier’s cheek without the least regard for their audience. “Everything, you hopeless man, and more than that besides.”

The boy’s expression was all joy.

“I will speak to him, Stephanie.”

“And if he will not hear you?”

Sir Joseph had arrived, quite without entourage, and stood considering his daughter and her protector with cool indifference. It was Stephanie who answered, perfectly calm.

“Then I imagine Barton will be captain of the guard before he sees home again, and you may have your choice of my cousins for your heir.”

James Barnes blanched with Sir Joseph.

“Stephanie,” they cried together- the father stern, the lover pleading. Of course she answered the latter first.

“Hush.”

She returned her attention to her father. “We will honour your decision.”

“Will you indeed?”

Howard’s one-time rival glared at the captain.

“Have you nothing to say for yourself?”

Stephanie’s eyes were fierce.

“When have you ever cared what he has to say?”

The soldier raised their joined hands to his lips without breaking eye contact with her father.

“I say it should have been her choice to begin with.”

Stephanie smiled, equal parts defiant and utterly besotted; her father’s face remained severe.

“You’d ruin the girl to have the final word on this.”

The young man’s composure hardly faltered.

“I’ll defend _the lady_ ’s right to have that final word herself.”

The silence that followed was so thick that even Tony dared not disturb it- then Sir Joseph smiled quite gently.

“You know, I really believe you will.”

“What?”

Stephanie’s eyes were wide and disbelieving as her father grasped the captain’s arm to draw him into a warm embrace.

“My boy, we must beg your forgiveness on more counts than we can name.”

“No,” Barnes objected at once. “My Lord, it was-“

“Hush,” Stephanie ordered again; her suitor fell silent obediently.

“That girl has always been too good for you,” Howard remarked before his son could speak. Tony smiled magnanimously.

“Isn’t she? How fortunate that my rival is so clearly more up to the task. Do you suppose the Archbishop can be convinced to perform an annulment and a second wedding on the same occasion?”

Under the circumstances Howard was certain it could be arranged.

“It was well managed,” he conceded stiffly, watching Sir Joseph press a grateful kiss to his daughter’s brow; Stephanie had yet to release her grip on the captain’s hand. They were quiet for a moment, then Howard saw his son frown.

“What is it?”

“You’re not going to _kiss_ me, are you?”

Howard allowed himself to smile at last.

“I was fervently hoping you would not suggest it.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> things end as they began, with a new bride awaiting her husband

Stephanie clasped her hands together to stop their shaking. It was only James knocking, after all- her own James, who had been her closest confidant and dearest love almost longer than she could remember.

“Enter,” Stephanie said softly, knowing he would hear. A moment later he had stepped through, closing the door behind him with such deliberate care that she knew he, too, was struggling to believe the moment was real, and could not be taken from them.

“James,” she murmured, and felt her breath catch anew when he smiled as he had only ever smiled for her.

“M’lady.”  

It was too much, and not enough, and Stephanie found she had little recourse but to let the feeling pull her first to her feet and then to her new husband’s side. Of course he drew her close at once, touching his lips to her temple in greeting as his arms encircled her waist. “I trust you have everything you need for the night.”

Feeling freer than she ever had, and bold because of it, Stephanie let her fingers sink into his dark hair so she would not stumble as she leaned up to kiss him, and not chastely.

“I’m almost sure I’ll manage.”

The captain’s eyes were the same startling grey they had ever been, but their inner light seemed brighter, somehow, since they had been named husband and wife.

“I’m very glad to hear it.”

He was already working to loosen her bodice, quick hands tangling readily with the stays and hooks, but after all her poor James was only a soldier, and quite- endearingly, delightfully- untried in such matters as divesting a lady of her intimate garments. Stephanie smiled almost against her husband’s jaw.

“Not quite your usual efficiency, I think.”

“Godforsaken contraption,” James growled, making her shiver as his breath heated her neck. “Small wonder it takes two maids to get you into the worthless thing to begin with.”

Stephanie laughed softly, turning in her husband’s arms so he could at least see the ground he was attempting to gain. “Patience, dearest.”

Her husband scoffed, raising a disdainful brow.

“ _Patience_?”  

James steadied her very gently with a hand at her shoulder; before she could ask what he imagined he was doing he bent his head to kiss her neck, grinning when she gasped. “Here’s what I think of _patience_ after the time we’ve had.”

Stephanie felt her back arch as an ice-cold shard pressed momentarily against her spine; James caught her in a one-armed embrace just as the corset that had been vexing him fell harmlessly away. It was only when he set his knife down on the desk behind him with a quiet murmur of satisfaction that Stephanie realized quite what he’d done.

“James!”

She was laughing already, pressing forward to cling to him as much for balance as because it was her right, now, as his wife. “I had no idea you could be such a rake.”

Evidently the time for shyness had long since passed- Stephanie grasped the ivory fabric of her husband’s heavy shirt and pulled him to her with both hands; his own being about her waist, James could hardly help but tumble abed with her.

“Wanton woman,” he murmured, watching her with the half-starved expression of a hermit emerging from the desert. Stephanie smiled, trailing her hands slowly from his now-bare shoulders to his neck.

“Only for you, Captain.”

He could not seriously need such an assurance- they knew now that Tony had never had the least intention of making any such advance on what should have been Stephanie’s wedding night. Her James, clearly thinking along the same lines, dropped his head to kiss her neck with fervent, near-frightened devotion. She moved with him, ready to grant him anything he needed, but did not understand his urgency until he spoke almost against her skin.

“Stephanie, my Stephanie-“

He had closed his eyes as though overcome- not with jealousy, she knew, but with compassion so raw that it gave every sign of hurting him in a real and present sense. His hands clenched, rigid with tension but absolutely cautious of her safety, at her waist. “When I think it could have been some heartless politician twice your age-“

Stephanie opened her mouth to reassure him, and closed it again because he was entirely in the right. In any version of her life where the young Lord Stark had not chosen quite so outlandish a method of outing his uncle, she would have been married at her father’s pleasure instead of her own, and both she and James had known it almost all their lives. Touched beyond expression by his pure horror on her behalf, she let her hands creep further along, up his neck and into the soft curls that gathered at the base of his skull.

“It could have been, perhaps.”

James shuddered, but made no other sound as Stephanie stroked his hair. “It never will be now, my love.”

“I thank God for it with all my heart.”

He raised his eyes just long enough to show her how truly he meant it, then with the same determination he brought to battle unclenched his jaw to kiss his wife- gently, but also passionately, and with such careful deliberation that it seemed to Stephanie that he meant to erase every imagined alternative from both her mind and his. She found herself rasping his name, all of a sudden enraptured and ensnared- entirely at his mercy and desperate for more.  

“James, _James_ -“

“Stephanie,” he whispered, at once timid and exultant. “My own beloved girl, at last.”

“No.”

She felt him freeze and reached up to kiss him deeply so he could not second-guess himself again. “Not _at last_ , I meant to say.”

Her husband’s eyes were huge with hope, and so trusting that Stephanie found herself fighting tears of her own. She would not alarm him, she decided, and closed the distance between them that need never exist again.

“As ever, darling.”

**Author's Note:**

> it's just been that kind of week, I guess. (no one I love has been forcibly married to a billionaire/genius/playboy/philanthropist; I'm just grumbly)


End file.
